Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator and author of Why We Get the Wrong Politicians. She also presents Radio 4’s Week in Westminster.
The DUP has confirmed that it will be voting against Theresa May’s Brexit deal this evening. A party spokesman said that ‘sufficient progress has not been achieved at this time’ and that ‘it is clear that the risks remain that the UK would be unable to lawfully exit the backstop were it to be activated’.
Why has Sajid Javid announced that he is revoking the citizenship of Shamima Begum? The 19 year old, who travelled as a teenager to join the Islamic State in Syria, has asked for ‘forgiveness’ from the UK, but last night the Home Secretary responded by saying he would be removing her status as a British
The three Conservative defectors to the Independent Group gave a notably upbeat press conference this lunchtime. It was quite a contrast to the sorrowful tone struck by the seven Labour MPs who announced they were leaving on Monday. Heidi Allen claimed that she was ‘so excited and in a way that I haven’t felt since
In a parallel universe, the MPs who’ve left the Labour and Conservative parties this week would be joining the existing centrist party that shares their views on Brexit. But the Liberal Democrats haven’t had a look in, despite Vince Cable and before him Tim Farron claiming that they’d spoken to would-be defectors. Cable has just
Theresa May has said she is ‘saddened’ by the decision of Heidi Allen, Sarah Wollaston and Anna Soubry to leave the Conservative party and join the new Independent Group of MPs. In statement released in the past few minutes, the Prime Minister said: ‘I am saddened by this decision – these are people who have
Another Labour MP, Joan Ryan, has tonight announced she is leaving the party to join the Independent Group. This is significant, and not just because it creates a sense of momentum. Ryan is the first Labourite to leave who wasn’t involved in the months of secret planning meetings. She was, until fairly recently, arguing that
There are seven MPs leaving Labour: Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker, Angela Smith, Chuka Umunna, Mike Gapes and Ann Coffey. They have revealed that they will call themselves ‘The Independent Group’. They will publish a full statement of what they stand for this morning. The MPs are setting out their reasons for leaving. Berger
A group of Labour MPs are expected to announce they are leaving the party this morning. While the numbers and names aren’t yet confirmed, this has been a very long time coming, with members planning their exit for months, and rumours about it swirling for almost as long. Finally, the question is now not whether
What will the UK do about Shamima Begum, the schoolgirl who travelled to Syria to join Islamic State? The Times’ stunning scoop this morning about the 19-year old’s plea to be allowed home from the Syrian refugee camp prompted Security Minister Ben Wallace to tell the Today programme that ‘actions have consequences’ and that she
After Theresa May mysteriously evaporated from the Commons following tonight’s government defeat, Downing Street has issued a statement insisting that nothing has changed. The official line is, somewhat tortuously, that the previous set of indicative votes from MPs were the ones that mattered, whereas this one didn’t. A No.10 spokesman said: ‘While we didn’t secure
The European Research Group has decided it will abstain on the government’s Brexit motion, which MPs will be voting on in the next hour. An ERG source said that there was a ‘collective decision’ at a meeting this afternoon to abstain on the motion if no other amendments to it were passed. Voting has begun,
Tomorrow’s Brexit vote has gone from being billed the ‘Valentine’s Day massacre’ to threatening a desperately dull anti-climax, and then back again to being quite interesting. This latest development comes courtesy of the European Research Group, which has said it could vote against the government on the motion that has been tabled because they object
How do you put people off thinking that a no-deal Brexit might be alright? Jeremy Corbyn clearly thinks the best way to do this is to talk about Chris Grayling and the mess over the contract for ferry services. The Labour leader made this the focus of his stint grilling Theresa May at today’s Prime
What’s behind the rise in demand for food banks? Over the past few years, the default Conservative line has been that the reasons people need emergency help are ‘complex’. This is certainly true: the figures released by the Trussell Trust, which runs the largest network of food banks in the country, show that there is
The woman on the path has come to a dead stop. She’d been shuffling along in that bunched-up posture we all developed when we bought smartphones, a two-fingered salute to the millennia of evolution that managed to pull humans into an upright position. Now she’s staring, open-mouthed, at her surroundings. I rather enjoy the shocked
You could tell that the result of tonight’s vote on the Brady amendment (which calls for alternative arrangements to replace the Northern Irish backstop) came as a surprise to those at the top of government from the look on Chief Whip Julian Smith’s face as he re-entered the Commons. He looked as though he had
Jeremy Corbyn scolded a Tory MP during his opening speech in the Commons debate on Theresa May’s Brexit Plan B, telling the backbencher that his intervention hadn’t added anything to the seriousness of the occasion. How odd, then, that the way the Labour leader conducted himself throughout his speech also ended up fitting that criticism
A row is brewing in the Commons over Labour’s stance on the Immigration Bill, which has its second reading this evening. The party’s whips told MPs this morning that they would be on a one-line whip for this piece of legislation, with the plan being to abstain on the vote itself. Centrist MPs in particular
The Commons has grown rather used to Theresa May giving an update on Brexit each Monday afternoon, and still more used to the Prime Minister offering precious little in the way of new information each time she does so. Today’s statement was a little different, in that May is now asking MPs for more information,
The government is publishing its draft domestic abuse bill today, over a year and a half after it announced plans to do so in the Queen’s Speech. Like so many pieces of domestic policy, this legislation has suffered greatly from the lack of government bandwidth for anything else other than Brexit, and it has been